The performance of law students at a London college

This article examines the value of jurisprudence in legal education. It argues that jurisprudence should be mandated at an early stage of the students' law curriculum as the legal ideals that may be imparted through a jurisprudence course cannot be adequately taught in a professional ethics course or through teaching jurisprudential perspectives in doctrinal subjects. Law schools have a special responsibility to get students thinking about what law is, what makes law legitimate, and how law is related to justice, morality, politics and rationality. A mandatory jurisprudence course should be intentionally structured along these themes.     

Through a screen,darkly: Electronic legal education in Europe

Abstract

Electronic legal education involves the use of information, communication and instructional technologies to enhance students’ learning of the law and to provide law teachers with environments and tools for teaching the law. With the fast growth of the Internet many Law schools and Law faculties are moving their education and training into web environments. This may open new ways of teaching and learning the law by providing students with an environment in which they can manage legal information and legal knowledge for their personal professional use. However, it is clear that throughout Europe there are divergent as well as convergent uses of the web and IT This article explores some of the issues inherent in this, and suggests a number of projects that would enable ICT in legal education to facilitate the aims of the Sorbonne‐Bologna process.     

Legal education in France and England: A comparative study*

Abstract

Despite the fact that part‐time law students comprise a significant proportion of law undergraduates, there continues to be an absence of legal research that considers the experiences and aspirations of such students as a distinct group. Against this backdrop, it is argued that these students require further research and attention for a number of reasons. First, their location allows a consideration of the extent to which broader governmental objectives for higher education are being met within law schools. Second, the extent of their presence in higher legal education places an important obligation upon law schools to explore the specific needs of this cohort and to consider the extent to which part‐time law students can be legitimately subsumed into the undergraduate cohort in terms of resources and planning. Third, the legal ambitions of many part‐time law students require a fresh consideration of the expectations of the recruiting legal profession and the legal profession's commitment to broadening social diversity within its ranks. Finally, as the experiences of part‐time and full‐time students become closer, a proper analysis of part‐time law students may provide invaluable information as to how law schools could adapt to meet the needs of all students in the future.     

美国法学教育和法律职业养成

美国法学教育是普通法传统下三年制研究生层次的职业教育。美国法学院力求教会学生学会在广泛学科领域中进行法律分析、掌握法律技能和理解职业价值。美国法学教育也遭到了各种各样的批评,有人批评法学院是否有效地为学生从事法律职业提供了充分准备。本文对美国法学教育作了概括介绍,分析了美国法学教育面临的挑战,并介绍了对当前的法学教育模式所提出的批评等内容。     

Virtue and the Law: The Good Moral Character Requirement in Occupational Licensing,Bar Regulation,and Immigration Proceedings

Character plays a crucial role in US law. This article explores flaws in how moral character requirements determine who can work in licensed occupations, who can practice law, and who can immigrate to the United States or become a citizen. Section I summarizes psychological research on character, which raises questions about a central legal premise that individuals have a settled disposition capable of accurately predicting their behavior independent of situational influences. Section II examines the role of moral character as an employment credential. Almost a third of the workforce is covered by licensing laws that typically require proof of good character and often unjustly penalize the seventy million Americans with criminal records. Section III examines the idiosyncratic and inconsistent application of moral character requirements for lawyers. Section IV focuses on similar flaws in immigration contexts. Section V identifies reform strategies to improve the fairness of character‐related decisions in the law.     

Objectives of Russian law schools today: what is the “ideal jurist”?

ABSTRACT

This article describes how Russian law schools understand their objectives today and whether there is an ideal model of a jurist to which law schools should conform. Different qualitative methods were used in this study, including a review of the post-Soviet legal education reforms, analysis of regulations governing higher legal education, analysis of websites, and expert semi-structured interviews with heads of law schools. The results demonstrate the difficulties faced by law schools, which are forced to balance the state standards of higher education and external legal, social, economic, and political challenges. The study concludes that law schools are experiencing serious difficulties with respect to understandings of their objectives as well as the current redefinition of the normative ideal model of a jurist. The study also makes it possible to draw conclusions about the importance of legal knowledge, different ways of understanding prestige in the legal profession, and the revival of features of the Soviet model of the “ideal jurist.”     

Preferential Treatment, Social Justice, and the Part-time Law Student – The Case for the Value-added Part-time Law Degree

There has been growing pressure to increase diversity in legal education and the legal profession in England and Wales. While this has focused upon the absence of certain groups such as women, ethnic minorities, and the disabled, there has been no specific discussion of part-time law students. Drawing on questionnaires and focus groups with part-time law students across England and Wales, this article examines how their background and experiences may hamper their ability to participate and succeed in higher education and legal practice. In response to the consistent omission of part-time students' needs from attempts to enhance social diversity in universities and the legal profession, it also argues that affirmative action is now necessary and justified in respect of these students. Pragmatic suggestions are made for a contextual approach to affirmative action for part-time law students which adds value to their degree. Finally, the potential effects of affirmative action on part-time law students themselves and upon the gatekeepers to the legal profession are explored.     

清除国家主义教育观的影响确立社会教育权的法律地位--写在《中华人民共和国民办教育促进法》实施之际

克服国家主义教育观的影响,通过宪法和法律确认社会教育权的法律地位;民办教育法首先应是民办教育振兴法,是民办学校及其教师、学生的权益保障法;法律应规范政府对民办学校的管理行为。     

New Wine in Old Bottles or New Wine in New Bottles?

This chapter traces the origins of what became the new university law schools, paying particular attention to the creation, culture, and contribution of the United Kingdom polytechnics. It argues that the 'equal but different' philosophy of the polytechnics has special application to law teaching. In particular, it demonstrates that legal education outside the traditional universities has a commitment to vocationalism, innovation in teaching and learning, and to widening access to both legal education and the legal profession. Drawing on research findings, the chapter explores the nature and the professional norms of law teachers in new universities, as contrasted with their counterparts in the traditional sector.     

Law teaching at colleges of further education

Scholars have long agreed upon the interrelated rationales for a diverse law faculty, which include the recognition of the value of multi-perspective and multicultural education and scholarship, the promotion of non-discrimination and prevention of discrimination in the legal academy and legal community at large, and the benefits of minority mentors and role models for minority students. This article will make use of the United States Supreme Court’s 2003 landmark decision in Grutter v Bollinger to illuminate how its diversity rationale in the admission of law students should extend to the hiring of minority law faculty members. Further, it will argue that “racial minorities” should include not only African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans, but also Asian Americans. Finally, law schools should include foreign professors in their affirmative action hiring efforts in this era of globalisation. Although this article focuses more upon faculty hiring than student admission, to the extent that it appropriates the Grutter rationale to discuss affirmative action hiring, affirmative action admission will also be a significant part of the discussion. After all, a diverse law faculty and a diverse student body are inseparable components of a supportive and friendly law school environment.     

What Did the Lawyers Do During the ‘War’? Neutrality,Conflict and the Culture of Quietism

Using Northern Ireland as a case study, this paper explores how lawyers responded to the challenges of entrenched discrimination, sustained political violence and an emerging peace process. Drawing upon the literature of the sociology of lawyering, it examines whether lawyers can or should be more than ‘paid technicians’ in such circumstances. It focuses in particular upon a number of ‘critical junctures’ in the legal history of the jurisdiction and uncouples key elements of the local legal culture which contributed to an ethos of quietism. The paper argues that the version of legal professionalism that emerged in Northern Ireland was contingent and socially constructed and, with notable exceptions, obfuscated a collective failure of moral courage. It concludes that facing the truth concerning past silence is fundamental to a properly embedded rule of law and a more grounded notion of what it means to be a lawyer in a conflict.     

Positivism and Plural Legal Systems

This paper considers whether the positivist account of law is useful in guiding states in how they should deal with religious or customary legal orders followed by minority groups within their jurisdiction. It argues, first, that such orders can be said to exist despite the prevalence of disagreement about the grounds of law. It then argues, contrary to views advanced by Scott Shapiro and Joseph Raz, that there are good reasons for perceiving that the resolution of legal disputes by reference to moral principle involves the application of pre‐existing law. However, the paper concludes by arguing that the Social Thesis has an important role in supplying the basis upon which the application of law can be deemed to be legitimate, and that this has relevance to the way states might respond to minority legal orders.     

Regulatory Threats to the Law Degree: The Solicitors Qualifying Examination and the Purpose of Law Schools

Two major regulatory changes are affecting the provision of undergraduate legal education in England and Wales. On the one hand, the Qualifying Law Degree is being deregulated, meaning law schools are free to make significant changes to how and what they teach. On the other hand, higher education in England has seen a significant overhaul through the creation of the Office for Students, which treats students as consumers. Now more than ever, law schools need to ask themselves existential questions which will not only test their continued relevance or indeed viability within the ‘market’ for higher education, but also the status of the discipline of law as a whole. The regulatory landscape may indeed present a significant threat, but it is also an opportunity to reflect on what law schools are for, and consequently what changes could result from the academic freedom that comes with deregulation. Whilst different law schools will interpret their mission differently, they should caution against either generalised inertia or succumbing to an outcomes-oriented provision that simply prepares students for the new Solicitors Qualifying Examination. Instead, law schools will find their proper purpose in critical reflection and academic self-grounding, providing undergraduate students with a ‘question everything’ mentality, and showing them that law is something to be experienced and not merely learnt.

     

Identifying Points of Contact and Engagement Between Legal and Environmental Education

This article explores the shaping and possibly reforming potential of ideas about sustainability in legal education by drawing up a scale of environmental education theories, arranged according to their propensity to transform radically university education. The article offers a critical analysis of current individualist strategies aimed at developing students' environmental skills, in particular that these hamper opportunities for universities to develop a broader and more creative agenda of social change. Applying ideas about how environmental education communities of practice develop, this article identifies some pockets of activity seeking to integrate ideas of sustainability into the law curriculum, including via environmental law and teaching Wild Law or Earth Jurisprudence. These issues form part of an on‐going debate about how well law students are being prepared for work in highly challenging social, environmental, and financial circumstances, against the backdrop of a broader question about ‘what are universities for?’     

法律人思维中的规范隐退

在法学出现了各种流派以后,有一个重要现象值得法治论者去研究。这就是除了教义学属性的法律解释学以及分析实证主义法学以外,多数法学流派的主要观点都是对现行法律规范的效力进行程度不同的消解、修正、甚至废止。这一方面丰富了法学研究的内容,使人们更全面地理解法律,但另一方面也从不同的角度挑战了法律甚至法治的权威。对此,法治论者必须正视。在很多法学流派中,由于带有教义学属性的法律解释学的基本观点被批判,尤其是后现代法学对法治基本原则的解构,使我们感觉到,法律人的思维(包括法学研究)中出现了规范的失落或者说法律的隐退。本文分析了在法律决断论和主体选择论的矛盾下,法律规范的尴尬地位、规范隐退的表现、原因以及拯救的姿态与理路,所蕴涵的问题意识在于批判能动司法的理论基础。     

'Failed Sociologists' in the Market Place: Law Schools in Australia

This paper traces the stunted evolution of Australian law faculties from 'trade schools' to liberal law schools. Higher education funding cuts and increased accountability to a government that is throwing the universities onto the competition of the market now combine with the traditional influence of a conservative profession to put Australian law schools in a precarious position. We argue that Australian law schools should transform themselves by embracing the contradictory position they inhabit, and using it to develop a broader concept of the legal knowledge they pass on and the legal practice for which they prepare their students.     

One size fits all? Multiple intelligences and legal education

This article argues that teaching and learning methodologies used in undergraduate law degrees are gradually shifting. The traditional model relied on a largely standardised, “one size fits all” approach which assumed that developing legal reasoning through attendance at lectures and participation in tutorials and seminars would produce a successful lawyer. However, today’s law schools are adapting to a large and diverse body of law students, many of whom will move on to careers outside the legal profession. This is being recognised by an increasingly pluralistic approach within undergraduate legal education, aided in no small measure by a greater focus on skills. This article will discuss the theory of multiple intelligences, which rejects the idea of a single measure of intelligence and instead identifies a number of different intelligences with both biological and cultural underpinnings. It is argued that acknowledging these multiple intelligences and using them as an organising concept to vary and diversify teaching and learning methodologies could help to further avoid the “one size fits all” approach and enhance the student experience.     

Socio‐legal Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand

This article reviews the development and impact of the socio‐legal field in New Zealand. It begins by assessing the socio‐legal presence within teaching and research conducted across New Zealand's law faculties before analysing factors likely to inhibit future growth of the sub‐discipline in this remote jurisdiction. Having examined how New Zealand's legal scholars map and influence national legal behaviour, without always recognizing contradictions between these objectives or categorizing their research as ‘socio‐legal’, the article goes on to examine how the next generation of socio‐legal researchers might exert stronger influence over the law curriculum and new areas of legal policy. In conclusion, it argues for a distinctive New Zealand approach toward socio‐legal studies and notes that future prospects appear encouraging, and in certain respects more promising than those in the United Kingdom, particularly when considering research impact.     

Law as a Parasitic Discipline

British university law schools are undergoing a radical change in the nature of legal research and scholarship. They were once dominated by pure doctrinal analysis but the new generation of legal scholars are either abandoning doctrinal work or infusing it with techniques and approaches drawn from the humanities and the social sciences. This essay argues that this change will lead to a greater ability to provide law students with a truly liberal education and will also enable the law school to take a much greater part in the intellectual debates to be found elsewhere in the university.